Time To Settle Down
by autumnrose2010
Summary: Based on season 4, episode 10, 'Details', except that instead of meeting Valerie, Johnny meets Julie, who's much nicer and more honest as well.
1. Meeting By Accident

Julie opened her eyes to find herself lying on her back on the ground, her bike with its wheels still spinning a short distance away. Her head hurt. She put her hand to it and pulled away blood.

In what seemed like almost no time, someone was there, a young man in a blue uniform. He had longish black hair and dark brown eyes. "Are you all right?" he asked her.

"My head is bleeding!" she cried.

The young man, whom she now realized was a paramedic, frowned as he examined the wound on her head. "Yeah, that's quite a scrape you got there," he agreed. "Can you sit up?"

Julie tried and felt a wave of dizziness. As she waited for it to pass, she watched the paramedic calling in her vitals to Rampart Hospital. When he was finished, he looked back at her.

"I'm Julie," she said, a bit shyly.

"I'm Johnny, and this is my partner, Roy," the paramedic told her. "We're gonna take you to the hospital just to make sure you don't have a concussion or neck injury."

As Julie rode in the ambulance to the hospital, she thought about Johnny's eyes, how they were the most gorgeous dark brown eyes she'd ever seen.

* * *

Later, Johnny and Roy were walking down the hall at Rampart when they saw Julie walking toward them.

"Hi, Johnny!" she called. "And..."

"Roy," Roy reminded her.

"Thanks for saving me," said Julie.

"It was nothing. We were just doing our jobs," Johnny said modestly.

"Are you guys married?" asked Julie.

"I'm married," said Roy.

"I'm not," said Johnny.

Julie scribbled her telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Johnny. "Call me sometime," she said. She had the sudden urge to kiss his cheek but decided that that might be too forward.

* * *

"She's gorgeous!" Johnny said later to his partner when they were together in the fire truck. "How often do I get a chance with a girl like her?"

"But you hardly know her," Roy pointed out.

"How long did you and Joanne know each other before you got married?" asked Johnny.

"Twelve years."

"Twelve years?" Johnny was incredulous.

"I didn't have a job when I first met her. I was only in fourth grade," Roy said dryly.

"Well, anyway, it's about time I settled down. Can you believe I'm almost thirty?"

"Yeah, you'll be ready for social security soon."

Johnny knew that Roy's jibes were only in fun, but they irritated him nonetheless. He was sick of Roy not taking him seriously just because he was slightly younger. He wished more than anything that he could do something to make Roy admire him and truly think of him as an equal.

He smiled fondly when he thought of Julie. The look of admiration and gratitude he'd seen in her eyes had thrilled him to the core, and he couldn't wait to see her again.

* * *

Julie was overjoyed that the handsome paramedic who'd come to her rescue when she'd fallen off her bike was single. At twenty-three, she was the only one of her group of friends from high school who wasn't married yet. Some of her friends even had babies now, and she hadn't even been on a date in six months. Not since Mike had left.


	2. First Date

He'd been one of the last of the soldiers called home from Vietnam by Nixon. When she'd seen him again, it had been as if something inside him had died. His eyes were hollow, empty, devoid of any joy. He didn't even seem glad to see her again. She'd tried her best to pick back up where they'd left off, but she hadn't been able to make it work. He'd seen too much violence, too much suffering, and it had left a permanent scar on his soul. He'd turned to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to escape the horror of what he'd been through. The last Julie had heard of him, his parents had had him committed to a mental health facility. She hoped they'd be able to help him.

Since the last time she'd seen Mike, her social life had been all but nonexistent. All her friends were married now, and it was no fun going to singles clubs alone. She hoped that meeting Johnny had been a sign that all that was about to change.

* * *

Johnny was in a good mood as he clocked out at the end of his shift and left to go home. On the way out, he met up with Chet.

"What are you so happy about, Gage?" asked Chet.

"I think I just met 'the one'," Johnny replied.

"Aw, you say that about every girl you meet."

"But I mean it this time, Chet. Mark my words, my days of being single are soon gonna be behind me."

"Yeah, right." Chet guffawed. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Johnny scowled at his co-worker. Chet was always trying to get a rise out of him.

He entered the empty apartment whistling a happy tune, dropped the stack of mail on one end of the table to be sorted through later, and pulled a TV dinner from the stack in the freezer, wondering what Roy's wife had cooked for dinner that evening. Undoubtedly it was something a lot tastier than re-heated turkey, mashed potatoes and green peas inside a foil tin.

* * *

Julie had just finished her own TV dinner and started to clean up around her own small apartment when the telephone rang.

"Hello, Julie? It's Johnny!"

"Hi! How are you?" He'd actually called!

"Doing all right. Kind of tired. Had to go see about a kid who got bit by a dog, and you know what? Turns out he bit the dog first!"

"What a brat!" Julie exclaimed. They both laughed.

"Hey, I was wondering, how would you like to try out that new Italian place that just opened up close to the fire station?"

"Sounds great!" said Julie.

"Cool! I'll pick you up at six. How's that?"

"I'll be looking forward to it," Julie replied. She couldn't wait to see him again.

* * *

Friday evening Julie waited eagerly for Johnny's arrival. She was wearing a polyester pantsuit with white slacks and a white top with vertical and horizontal lavender and beige stripes. She's considered wearing platform shoes but had opted for lavender flats instead. Although Johnny was tall, he wasn't all that much taller than she herself was.

At exactly 6:05 the doorbell rang, and there stood Johnny, handsome in black slacks and a grey polo shirt.

"Sorry I'm a little late," he said. "Traffic was terrible."

"That's all right," Julie replied.

The ride to the restaurant took only a few minutes. 'Annie's Song' by John Denver was playing on the radio on the way there.

The restaurant was nice, with dark red carpet and Al Martino singing in the background. The lighting was dim, giving the interior a romantic atmosphere. While waiting for their food to arrive, Johnny and Julie chatted.

"How did you become interested in being a paramedic?" Julie asked Johnny.

"I grew up on a Seminole reservation," Johnny told her. "There was a lot of poverty and suffering there. A lot of ignorance about modern-day medicine as well. I decided that I wanted to learn as much as I could about it so that I could help my people."

"And then you ended up in a big city like Los Angeles."

"Yeah." Johnny chuckled.

"I think I'm part Native American too, somewhere way back. Not sure what tribe. I've always wanted to find out. I think it would be really neat to know."

"It would be. So, what kind of work do you do?"

"I'm a bookkeeper."

"How'd you get into that?"

Julie shrugged. "It was what my mom did. I guess I just sort of always assumed I'd do that too."

Their food arrived then, so the conversation came to a temporary halt.


	3. Visiting The Fire Station

"So do I just take you home now, or what?" Johnny asked when they'd finished eating.

"It _is _a bit early," Julie observed.

"I would take you by the fire station, except that second shift's on duty now, and since I work first shift, none of them know me. Say, where do you work?"

"Carmichael and Dunn. It's only a couple of blocks from here."

"Come by on your lunch break Monday, and I'll introduce you to everyone. But call first before you come to make sure I'm in."

He took her dancing and then home. She invited him in for drinks, and they talked some more. He wanted to kiss her good-bye but lost his nerve.

Monday she came by the fire station.

"Julie!" Johnny's face lit up happily when he saw her. "You already know Roy, and this is Chet, Lopez, and Stoker." Julie said hi to everyone.

"Would you like to see the fire truck?" asked Johnny.

"Sure!"

He took her to the garage and showed it to her, and she was duly impressed by all the special equipment. He was interrupted when he and Roy got called to an accident site. "Sorry. Got to go," he told Julie.

"That's OK. I understand," she replied.

_Wow, I'm actually dating a fireman! _she thought to herself as she drove back to work.

"You certainly look happy," her co-worker, Carla, said to her.

"I went to visit Johnny at the fire station over lunch."

"That guy you went out with Friday night? Cool!"

"Yeah, it was pretty awesome seeing where he works, even though I didn't get to stay for very long because he got called away to an emergency."

"Well, I'm happy for you that you finally met someone nice." Carla was about ten years older than Julie and was married with a couple of kids. "So you think you'll go out with him again this weekend?"

"He hasn't said anything about it yet, but I hope so."

She was in a better mood than she'd been in for a long time as she made the five-minute drive between the small office in which she worked to her small apartment. She parked the car, hurriedly checked the mail, finding only a bill and a couple of advertisements, and went inside. She turned the oven on to preheat, looked over the selection of TV dinners in her freezer, and selected the meatloaf. While waiting, she switched the TV on. President Ford had signed some bill or other. She didn't care that much about politics but was interested in the local news.

While eating, she heard the story of an accident in which a man had had a heart attack while driving and hit a car with a young woman and little girl inside. She wondered whether Johnny had been called to the scene of that accident. She hoped she'd hear from him again soon.

* * *

Johnny and Roy had been called to the scene of an accident in which a woman had suffered a possible spinal cord injury. They got her safely out of the car and immobilized until the ambulance got there. Johnny hadn't seen her move her arms or legs since they'd arrived on the scene. He hoped she wasn't permanently paralyzed. She'd been about Julie's age.

When he returned to the fire station, he was so preoccupied with worrying about her that he didn't even notice Chet until his co-worker spoke to him. "Wow, Gage, you actually got her to go out with you. I'm impressed."

"What's so weird about that?" Johnny retorted. Chet just grinned and shook his head.

Johnny was tired when he got home. He fell asleep not too long after eating dinner. He thought about Julie and wondered how she was doing as he drifted off to sleep.


	4. Interrupted Movie

Wednesday evening Johnny called Julie after dinner. "What would you like to do this weekend?" he asked her.

"There's a movie playing that I've really been wanting to see," she told him. "It's called 'The Great Gatsby' and it stars Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. I've always thought Robert Redford was _so _dreamy."

Johnny laughed. "Well, Mia Farrow's a pretty hot little number herself. Sure, I'd like to see it."

"How did things go at work today?"

"Not too good. We lost a man."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, there was a cobra loose, and we just assumed that it had bitten him, but as it turned out, he'd had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest. We spent so much time looking for the fang marks on him that by the time we finally figured out what had really happened, it was too late to try to get his heart re-started."

"That's really sad," Julie agreed. "But everybody makes mistakes, Johnny."

"But in this profession, one mistake can make the difference between whether someone lives or dies."

"That's true," Julie agreed. "I couldn't imagine having to live under that kind of pressure."

"What makes it worth it for me is the high you get when you save someone. Nothing in the world compares to that."

Johnny arrived for their second date in a blue polo shirt and tan slacks. Julie herself was wearing a purple dress with tiny white polka dots and matching purple flats.

"You look very nice," he told her.

"Thanks. So do you," she replied. "Purple's my favorite color."

"Shall we be on our way, then?" he asked.

"When they reached the theater they saw that it was very crowded, and many of the movie goers were teenage girls. Probably there to see Robert Redford, Julie guessed.

"Would you like some popcorn?" asked Johnny.

"No, thanks," she said. "I'm not really hungry, but you can get some if you want."

"That's OK," he said.

At the beginning of the movie, Johnny shyly reached for Julie's hand, and she let him hold it. The movie was about two thirds of the way through when suddenly the lights came on and the theater manager rushed in, panicked.

"Do any of you have any medical knowledge?" he asked.

"I'm a paramedic," Johnny told him.

"We have a gentleman in the lobby who just collapsed," the manager said.

In a flash Johnny was up and following the manager into the lobby. The lights came back on and the movie resumed a few minutes later, but Julie wasn't really paying attention. All she could think about was whether or not Johnny would be able to save the man in the lobby.

* * *

When Johnny arrived, he saw that the man was lying on the floor in front of the concession stand, unconscious. Johnny quickly examined him and determined that he wasn't breathing and had no pulse. He immediately started CPR and kept at it until the B shift paramedics arrived and took the man to the hospital. By that time the movie was almost over, so rather than returning to the theater, Johnny just stayed in the lobby waiting until Julie came out with the others.

"What happened?" she asked as soon as she saw him.

"He wasn't breathing and he didn't have a pulse when I got to him," Johnny told her. "I think he must have had an acute myocardial infarction, a massive heart attack. I performed CPR on him until B shift could get there to take him to the hospital."

"So is he going to live?"

"I don't know. It depends on how badly damaged his heart is."

"But he definitely wouldn't have lived if you hadn't been here."

"I'm just glad I was." He grinned. "So how did the rest of the movie go?"

"To be honest, I wasn't really paying too much attention. I was too worried about the guy who collapsed."

"Oh, well. We can always go back and see it another time." Johnny grinned and threw his arm around her shoulder. "It's a lovely night. Would you like to go for a little walk before I take you home?" His adrenaline was still racing, and he needed to do something to finish calming down.

"That sounds like a good idea," Julie replied.

He took her hand, and they walked along the sidewalk beside the building. The light from the street lights bathed the area in a warm glow, and the sound of chirping crickets filled the air.

"Everything seems so peaceful, doesn't it?" asked Julie.

"It's really nice," Johnny agreed.

"I think it's kind of romantic," Julie added. "You know what? I think it's the perfect setting for our first kiss."


	5. Julie Meets Joanne

"We went for a stroll in the moonlight, and I kissed her under the stars," Johnny told Roy the next time they worked together.

Roy chuckled. "To her you must seem like Superman." Johnny had just told his partner about the man who'd collapsed in the theater lobby.

"To me she seems like a dream come true," Johnny replied.

"Sounds like you _have _got it bad this time, Gage," remarked Chet, who'd overheard the conversation.

"This time is different," Johnny protested. "You just wait and see!"

Chet grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

That evening Julie was surprised, but delighted, when Johnny called her. "How was your day?" she asked him.

"Crazy." He rolled his eyes. "I had to give a bunch of kids a tour through the hospital. You wouldn't believe the questions they asked me. I don't know what they're teaching kids in school these days, but it's sure a lot more sophisticated than the stuff I learned in the school on the reservation. Then, wouldn't you know it, we just happened to have a famous author as a patient, and he stole all my thunder."

"Aw, I'm sorry," said Julie.

Johnny found that sharing events from his life with Julie was totally different from sharing them with his buddies at the fire station. While Roy, Chet and the others tended to react with sarcasm and friendly ribbing, Julie expressed genuine sympathy, which gave Johnny a warm feeling inside. That was why he found himself thinking of her more and wanting to call her more often than before.

Later in the week, he called her with news about the weekend. "The guys in station 51 are going to be playing baseball against the guys from a rival station," he told her. "I'd love it if you could come and cheer us on."

"That sounds like fun!" Julie agreed.

Saturday morning, it was bright and sunny as she drove to the ball park. She didn't recognize any of the people sitting in the bleachers, but a woman who looked to be only slightly older than herself smiled and made room for her. Julie smiled back gratefully and sat down beside her. "I'm Julie."

"I'm Joanne DeSoto, and these are my children, Chris and Jennifer," the woman replied.

"I'm dating Johnny Gage," Julie told her.

"Really? I'm Roy's wife."

"I've met Roy," Julie replied. "I actually met him and Johnny at the same time. They took me to the hospital after I fell off my bicycle and hurt my head."

"Are you OK now?" asked Joanne.

"Oh, yes. It was only a slight concussion."

The game started then, so they stopped talking. Station 51 played a good game and won by a narrow margin. Johnny scored two home runs.

After the game, all the firemen mingled with their wives and friends. "You were great!" Julie told Johnny.

"Of course I was. I had you here as my good luck charm." He hugged her and kissed her forehead.

"Why don't you two come over later?" Roy suggested to Johnny and Julie. "We could have a barbecue in my back yard." Julie drove back to her apartment, and later, Johnny picked her up and took her to Roy and Joanne's house.

By the time they got there, Roy had already started the grill, and delicious smells wafted on the air. Chris and Jennifer were playing Frisbee with the dog, and Joanne was setting out paper pates and cups on the picnic table.

"Oh, let me help!" Julie exclaimed.

"Sure, you can serve the coleslaw," Joanne said with a smile. "Chris and Jennifer won't eat it, so just give them potato chips."

Julie had a great time with Roy and Joanne and their family. They stayed until nearly dark, and then Johnny and Julie left. "So, do you want to go to a movie or something?" asked Johnny.

"There's supposed to be a free outdoor concert in the park tonight," said Julie. "Want to do that?"

"Sure!" Johnny replied.

Sitting on a quilt underneath the stars listening to soft jazz soon put them both in a romantic mood.

Johnny sat on the quilt, and Julie sat between his legs leaning back against him. He stroked her hair and caressed her cheek, and she turned to kiss him. Soon neither of them were paying much attention to the music.


	6. Airplane Crash

Engaged in heavy necking, Johnny and Julie hardly noticed when the concert ended and the rest of the audience started to leave. At last Julie glanced around. "Well, I guess we'd better go," she said.

"Uh...yeah," Johnny said with a chuckle. Quickly he folded the quilt up and walked back to the car hand-in-hand with Julie.

Julie felt as if she were floating on clouds for the whole ride home. She dreaded having to say good-bye to Johnny when they reached their destination.

When they got to Julie's front door, Johnny took both her hands into his own and looked into her eyes. "Thank you for a wonderful day, Julie," he said.

"I had a great time, too," she replied. An awkward silence followed, during which Julie's heart began to pound. She wondered whether he was expecting her to invite him inside, and at the same time, she felt terribly afraid of what might happen if she did.

"Good-night, Johnny," she said at last.

"Good-night," he replied. Was that a glimmer of disappointment she saw in his eyes? Softly he kissed her lips and then went back to the car. She turned to enter her apartment, wondering whether she'd just made a mistake.

* * *

The following week was quite hectic for Johnny. One day a jet crashed into an apartment building and set it on fire. Another day, something so unusual happened that he couldn't wait to get home to tell Julie about it.

"You'll never guess what happened today!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"I found a Bengal tiger behind a grocery store. It had escaped from the zoo."

"Wow! Weren't you afraid it was going to attack you?"

He chuckled. "Let's just say I was very relieved by the time it was finally captured."

"You _do _have a very exciting job, Johnny. It makes mine seem so boring by comparison."

"I'll remember your saying that next time I have to run into a blazing building to save someone."

Soon after that conversation, Johnny had to fly out of town to take care of business. Only a few minutes after he was seated, he was approached by an attractive stewardess. She had long blonde hair that she wore back in a ponytail, big blue eyes, and a brilliant smile with perfect white teeth.

"I'm Susan," she told Johnny. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Apple juice would be fine," Johnny replied.

A couple of hours later he heard Susan's voice again. "We're flying into turbulent conditions," she announced. "Everyone please remain in your seats and fasten your seat belts."

A few minutes later, there was a tremendous jolt and the airplane stopped moving. A moment later, Johnny heard Susan's voice again. "Does anyone on board have any medical training?" she asked.

Johnny raised his hand. "I'm a paramedic."

"The airplane has crashed into a clump of trees in the woods," she told him. "Several passengers have suffered minor injuries and need medical attention."

"I'll be happy to see what I can do," Johnny said. "By the way, I'm John Gage of the Los Angeles Fire Department."

Susan watched as Johnny treated several concussions, a couple of lacerations, and a broken finger. "You're amazing, Mr. Gage," she enthused. "I don't know what we would have done if you weren't on this flight."

Johnny grinned. "Please, just call me Johnny."

The pilot was still conscious and had radioed for help, but a heavy rain impeded the arrival of the rescue workers. The rain beat against the windows of the downed aircraft, and as it began to get darker, one of the airplane's broken wings came completely off, causing the airplane to slide dangerously even further into the foliage.

"I'm scared!" Susan whimpered, clinging to Johnny. Awkwardly he put his arms around her and let her cry on his shoulder.


	7. Temptation

As Susan continued to cling to Johnny and sob, he felt an urge to comfort and protect her, and as his arms tightened around her, he realized with a start that he also felt quite powerfully attracted to the distraught stewardess. He thought of Julie and felt a sharp twinge of guilt, but right now Julie just seemed so far away, while Susan was right here, right now, and they'd been thrust into this harrowing situation together.

Almost before he realized what he was doing, he found himself placing soft kisses along her hairline.

* * *

Julie first realized that she wasn't feeling well after lunch, but, determined to complete her work for the day, she struggled on. Later in the afternoon, her head began to pound, and she began to shake uncontrollably. The numbers on the ledger swam before her eyes, but she did the best she could to ignore the symptoms and keep working. Relieved when it was finally time to go home, she attempted to stand and, surprised by how weak and dizzy she felt, gripped the side of the desk for support.

"Are you sure you're OK?" Carla asked her, frowning in concern.

"I'm fine," Julie insisted, walking to her car. She wasn't quite there when she collapsed.

* * *

Suddenly Johnny came to his senses and pushed Susan away. "I can't do this!" he exclaimed.

Susan looked up at him, puzzled and hurt.

"There's someone back home," Johnny explained apologetically. "Julie. I've been seeing her for a couple of months now, and she's become very special to me."

"Oh." Susan looked so disappointed that Johnny felt sorry for her.

"Yeah." He patted her arm in sympathy. "You're a very beautiful girl, Susan. I'm sure you'll meet someone soon."

The rescue workers arrived and began helping all the passengers to safety. As soon as he was on the ground, Johnny called a taxi to take him to the nearest motel. He wished that he could call Julie and tell her what had happened, but it was so late that he realized that she'd be in bed by now.

* * *

The following sequence of events passed as in a blur for Julie. Vaguely she was aware of voices in the background, of her body being placed on a stretcher and loaded into a vehicle, of the vehicle moving. Then there was the bustle of busy hallways, bright lights that hurt her eyes. The next thing she knew, a man with dark hair, sideburns, and kind blue eyes was looking down at her.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Brackett," he told her.

"I'm Julie," she mumbled. "Where am I?"

"You're in the Rampart hospital emergency room. When we brought you in here, you had a temperature of one hundred and four. How do you feel now?"

"Very weak...and cold...and my chest hurts really bad..."

"I've ordered chest X-rays for you," Dr. Brackett told her. "I think you may have pneumonia. After that, we'll get you settled comfortably in a room." He patted her arm comfortingly.

"Hi, I'm Nurse McCall," said a slender nurse with long dark blonde hair and blue eyes. "Here's some nice warm blankets for you." She tucked the blankets around Julie, and they were so cozy that Julie began to feel drowsy.

She dozed off and on. Someone came and took her to X-ray on a gurney, then got her set up in a semi-private room, where she dozed some more. The next time she awakened, she looked into a pair of familiar brown eyes.

"Johnny!" she exclaimed, reaching for him.

He took her into his arms and held her tight. "You're going to be OK, Julie," he told her. "You have pneumonia in both lungs, but you're receiving antibiotics through an IV, and in just a few days, you're going to be fine."

"I thought you were out of town."

"The plane crashed, so my plans got canceled. I'll just have to go another time, but that's all right. I wouldn't have gone anyway if I'd known you were going to get sick." The image of holding Susan in the crashed airplane filled his mind, and immediately he pushed it away.

"I wouldn't have expected you to change your plans just for me, Johnny."

"But I would have, Julie, in a heartbeat. You're that important to me."

Suddenly, in spite of her illness, Julie felt deliriously happy.


	8. Diane

Julie was dismissed from the hospital several days later and returned to work. Life proceeded as normal for a few weeks, and then something devastating happened.

It began as just a routine call for Johnny and Roy. They arrived at the home of a woman who'd overdosed on sleeping pills. The woman's roommate met them at the door and introduced herself as Cathy. "Diane's in the bedroom," she told them.

They entered the bedroom to find Diane still conscious and lying on the bed, the empty bottle of pills on a table beside her. "Did you take all of these?" Roy asked her, holding the bottle up.

"Yes, I did," she said defiantly.

"Then you're going to be very sick in a little while," he told her. "You'll have to let us take you to the hospital to have your stomach pumped."

"I'm _not _going to any hospital!" Diane threw a vase at the mirror and shattered it. "Can't you see? I _want _to die!"

Johnny and Roy walked back into the living room where Cathy was. "She refuses to come with us," Roy told her.

"But you have to do something! She's going to die!" Cathy cried.

"We can't do anything while she's conscious and coherent," Johnny told her. "We'll just have to wait until she loses consciousness. Then we'll have a patient."

They returned to the bedroom to find an increasingly disoriented, but still conscious, Diane. She'd stumbled from the bed to a nearby coffee table for a pack of cigarettes, and was attempting to climb back onto the bed. She faltered, then fell in a heap beside it.

_"Now _we have a patient," said Johnny. They called in the woman's vitals and prepared to transport her to the hospital.

* * *

Julie entered her apartment to find the telephone ringing. "Julie! Thank goodness you're home!" said her mother's voice. "Something terrible has happened!"

"What is it, Mom?" Julie's heart began to pound madly as she wondered if it was her father or one of her younger brothers.

"Your Aunt Bertha just called. Your cousin Diane's gone. She...killed herself today."

_"What!" _Diane was Julie's age. They'd grown up together and had always been close.

"She took pills." Julie's mother was crying so hard that she could hardly speak. "The hospital did everything they could, but they couldn't save her."

Julie's mind reeled as she recalled the last time she'd spoken to Diane. Her cousin had seemed so happy. She'd finally gotten her dream job, and she was dating a man she'd met at work. Everything had seemed to be going so well for her.

"Oh, no, Mom!" Julie groaned. "I can't believe it!"

"Neither could I," her mother replied.

"Well, what are the arrangements?"

"She's at Lowell Funeral Home. They're planning on having the funeral Saturday."

Julie's stomach was in knots as she sat the receiver down and went to sit on the sofa. Normally she was starving after work, but today her appetite was completely gone.

The telephone rang again a couple of hours later. "Hey, babe!" Johnny said cheerfully.

"Oh, Johnny! I'm so glad to hear your voice!"

"What is it?" Instantly he was very concerned.

"It's my cousin Diane. She killed herself today."

"Oh, no, Julie! I'm so sorry!"

"My Mom told me she swallowed a bunch of pills."

Johnny was silent for a long time.

"What is it?" Julie finally asked.

"Did you say her name was Diane?"

"Yes. Why?"

"That's the woman Roy and I tried to save today! Her roommate, Cathy, told us what had happened, but Diane was still conscious and refused to let us take her to the hospital. We had to wait until she'd lost consciousness, but by that time, it was too late. God, Julie, I'm so sorry."

Julie couldn't believe it. Johnny had been one of the last people to see Diane alive. "I just don't understand it," said Julie. "She had so much going for her, so much to live for."

"Sometimes there just isn't an answer," Johnny said softly. "God, Julie, I had no idea she was your cousin. Were you very close?"

"We grew up together. I never had a sister, and Diane was kind of like a sister to me."

"Well, would you like for me to come over?"

"That would be great!"

He did, and stayed for several hours. Julie cried on his shoulder as she recounted her favorite memories of Diane. "Will you stay with me tonight, Johnny?" she asked when he got ready to leave. "I don't feel like being alone right now."


End file.
